New found hatred for Western Digital....

**PCBONEZ** · 06-18-2010, 02:05 PM

Re: New found hatred for Western Digital....

Originally posted by stj

buying 500gig drives wont help,
if you look at the mfr datasheets you will see the 500gig drives are the same as the terabyte ones - just less platters fitted.

Exactly.
Less platters, less heads to keep aligned simultaneously, less alignment problems.

**PCBONEZ** · 06-18-2010, 02:37 PM

Re: New found hatred for Western Digital....

Since ~2005 [other than work-bench drives and Raptors in MySQL DB servers] I've been using WD RE Series RAID series drives like WD1600SB, WD2500SB, WD2500YS, WD5000YS and WD5000ABYS in final builds.
I've been through around 350 of those drives and only had one failure so far.
That one failure was a DOA that got replaced under warranty.

Oh and, I buy those as used server drives in lots of 5, 10, or 20.
Maintenance companies usually switch drives [or whole servers] every 2-3 years as a policy but these model drives still have 2-3 years of warranty left at that point.
Whenever someone updates a server room there is a temporary 'glut' of them on eBay and for the last three 10 packs [bought last year] I ended up paying $27-$32/drive [including shipping] for 500Gb YS models.
- Have to watch for the 'gluts' as they come and go quick!

Note: On YS models you need to flash the firmware but it's easy.

.

**PCBONEZ** · 06-18-2010, 02:40 PM

Re: New found hatred for Western Digital....

Originally posted by acstech

I'll admit that I haven't read the whole thread, and I apologize if this has come up before, but I wonder how much Universal Package Smashers (UPS) has to do with this? They even say your package is subject to a 6 foot drop.

Along that line of thought...
Seagate used to specify 1.5" of soft foam padding on all 6 'sides' for warranty returns or they wouldn't honor the warranty.
I don't think these new plastic holder arrangements [packaging] offers as much shock protection as the old methods.

.

**stj** · 06-18-2010, 06:58 PM

Re: New found hatred for Western Digital....

you mean the bumpy pvc clamshell like samsung uses?
that wont stop anything other than visible damage like dents - maybe.

**Scenic** · 06-18-2010, 07:04 PM

Re: New found hatred for Western Digital....

^ i only use that decoration crap for storing my HDDs in a drawer.. you know.. piling them up with those.. shipping a HDD with that as a "protection"? no way..

edit: talking about those thingys..

**bgavin** · 06-21-2010, 08:09 PM

Re: New found hatred for Western Digital....

So far, the Supermicro and pair of RAID1 disk groups is doing the job.
Before I created the RAID groups, each drive passed a complete media scan and diags under Data Lifeguard.

The RAID groups are built using the latest Intel RST which replaced the older Matrix Storage Manager. I will do RAID1 in software, but I'll be damned if I would ever do anything of a higher order in anything but hardware.

There is a compelling argument away from RAID5 and back to RAID1 now that large capacity is both affordable and relatively reliable. I have tested breaking a RAID1 volume, and it does not trash the data on either disk. The Intel RST provides a rebuild function when one of the pair dies. Performance is excellent.

**PCBONEZ** · 06-22-2010, 08:15 AM

Re: New found hatred for Western Digital....

Originally posted by bgavin

There is a compelling argument away from RAID5 and back to RAID1 .....

I agreed with that argument for several years before I heard it from someone else.. (-;
.
RAID1 or RAID10 are easy and get the job done just fine so there's no reason to complicate the system [and your life] with RAID 5.
.
Unless it's a server I use RAID1 usually with a hot-spare installed.
If it's a Windows-only system I usually use a promise card.
If it needs to support Linux I'll use a 3ware card.
.

**RJARRRPCGP** · 07-14-2010, 01:25 PM

Re: New found hatred for Western Digital....

Originally posted by Junk Parts

I just got a PC with SATA onboard. Now I need to read up on this RAID stuff. Here at my house all we have ever used RAID for is to kill ants.

LOOL

**RJARRRPCGP** · 07-14-2010, 01:36 PM

Re: New found hatred for Western Digital....

Originally posted by Scenic

images with random "bad pixels" or whole parts of the picture just missing or replaced by random colors..

Reminds me of when the GPU is overclocked too much, I would get crap like that in 3D Mark 2001 SE.

Originally posted by Scenic

(with the exception of the Diamond Max Plus 8 Slimline drives.. with their firmware fuckup (basically the same prob seagate had recently))
still have a couple Diamond Max Plus 9 & 10 and some MaxLine HDDs going strong with no probs at all..

Same here, the Diamond Max 9s are good.

My 2005 Maxtor 6Y060P0 has zero signs of failing.

**Shocker** · 02-15-2012, 12:19 AM

Re: New found hatred for Western Digital....

Originally posted by Topcat

I've been saying that from the beginning with bad capacitors...... Motherboards we can fix, shoddy hard drives we can not. pathetic of the drive makers, there's no need for planned obsolescence with storage devices other than greed. I guess it all comes down to greed in the end, but atleast we can fix the caps.

Super appalling.

There are two types of HDDs I trust - old drives (before the switch to perpendicular recording), and enterprise drives. No more decent consumer drives, apparently.

My important stuff is on a heavily-used-and-abused ST380011A. All the way from 2004. More than four years of power-on. Backed up to a 40GB Western Digital (don't remember the exact model, but it's new enough to have fluid bearings). I'm not just nostalgic.

I'm curious - what's the oldest drive you have in use??? I have an ST31000524AS from last year which is...not in good shape. My ST31000528AS from the year before that has held up so far, though.

**PCBONEZ** · 02-15-2012, 12:30 AM

Re: New found hatred for Western Digital....

Originally posted by Shocker

There are two types of HDDs I trust - old drives (before the switch to perpendicular recording), and enterprise drives.

Agree.

**Shocker** · 02-15-2012, 12:46 AM

Re: New found hatred for Western Digital....

Don't even ask how hot it got in the past.

**Per Hansson** · 02-15-2012, 12:03 PM

Re: New found hatred for Western Digital....

Originally posted by Shocker

I'm curious - what's the oldest drive you have in use???

A Seagate ST32171W Barracuda 4LP - 2.1GB Ultra SCSI 7200RPM

It's da fucking bomb :P

**severach** · 02-15-2012, 10:46 PM

Re: New found hatred for Western Digital....

Originally posted by Shocker

There are two types of HDDs I trust - old drives (before the switch to perpendicular recording)

No panacea there. My 300GB Seagate EIDE ST3300631A ST3300831A have racked up countless hours with no failures. From about the same time 250GB Western Digital EIDE WD2500JB WD250BB were somewhat less reliable than suicide bombers with almost 50% failure rate.

RAID 1 everywhere is good enough for me. Someday Linux will have a checksum file system to solve the Silent Data Corruption problem.

**Agent24** · 02-15-2012, 11:55 PM

Re: New found hatred for Western Digital....

Interesting...

I have had data get corrupted sometimes but it always coincided with bad sectors on a drive or a scratched CD or faulty system RAM (or other obvious scenario)

At least, that I know of....

**Scenic** · 02-16-2012, 12:04 AM

Re: New found hatred for Western Digital....

I've had a bad Samsung SP0411N or something (40GB IDE drive) slowly corrupt all the data on it over time. No bad or pending sectors. Possibly bad cache SD(?)-RAM chip or something.. couldn't find anything wrong with it, yet it still corrupted data..

It was one of those thinner than normal drives like this
http://2.static.slando.com/photos/li...016462_1_F.jpg
http://entar.com.ua/Uploads/Images/SP0411N.jpg

**shovenose** · 02-16-2012, 12:10 AM

Re: New found hatred for Western Digital....

I use 2x250GB Seagate ES SATA (mirrored RAID) + 1x1TB Seagate ES2 SATA in my server...
Windows Server 2008 and the Minecraft server are installed on the 250Gb drives...

the 1TB was supposed to hold backups but I've been lazy and it's empty. Lol!

All my Seagate drives make weird noises. One of the 250GB drives in that server makes a tickling noise on startup, and the 1TB makes terrible clacking noises on startup. but they all work fine

the 160GB in my main Compaq desktop makes odd sounds on startup but it works fine.

All my WD drives are quiet and work well..
-320GB Caviar Blue in bedside PC
-640GB Scorpio Blue in Lenovo laptop
then again these were both brand new

I hate hard drives. (no, hard drive in bedside PC that I'm using right now, you don't just hear my say that)

**Shocker** · 02-16-2012, 02:50 AM

Re: New found hatred for Western Digital....

If I run out of space on my ST380011A I'll get a 400GB 7200.8 LOL.

**PCBONEZ** · 02-16-2012, 05:47 AM

Re: New found hatred for Western Digital....

Originally posted by severach

No panacea there. My 300GB Seagate EIDE ST3300631A ST3300831A have racked up countless hours with no failures. From about the same time 250GB Western Digital EIDE WD2500JB WD250BB were somewhat less reliable than suicide bombers with almost 50% failure rate.

RAID 1 everywhere is good enough for me. Someday Linux will have a checksum file system to solve the Silent Data Corruption problem.

I've never had any problems with WD2500JB or WD250BB (or WD2500SB) and I've never seen ~Real~ Silent Data Corruption in an IDE (non PRM) drive.
(I haven't used the JB in large quantities but the BB and SB I have.)
-
The people that did the testing were using an out of date firmware and fixed 80% of the errors by doing what they should have known to do before they even started the test. (Pretty dumb techs...)
-
And the author (and the testers) apparently don't know that an error logged in the Firmware does not imply there is a corrupted file.
- When a drive makes a write error it logs it and then fixes the error.
That's the whole reason the Firmware monitors for errors.
It's normal to have a few bad writes that get fixed. (Same thing happens inside RAM.)
The drive doesn't have a problem unless the error count is going up rapidly and that is almost always due to issues with the disk surface.
.

**PCBONEZ** · 02-16-2012, 05:53 AM

Re: New found hatred for Western Digital....

Originally posted by Agent24

Interesting...

I have had data get corrupted sometimes but it always coincided with bad sectors on a drive or a scratched CD or faulty system RAM (or other obvious scenario)

At least, that I know of....

That's my experience too.
.
A drive error doesn't mean the file actually got broke.
- It only means it failed on the first try at writing the file and drives attempt to write like 5 times before they give up.
If they give up they mark the sector bad and put the file somewhere else.
- That's the other reason drives have buffers(cache).
The file stays in cache [like a BU copy] until a good copy has been successfully written to the disk.
.
Not likely to get file corruption unless the file is already done writing and -then- the disk surface goes bad.
Or, if one of the interface chips [system or drive end] is scrambling data before it gets to the buffer and heads.
[Bad caps (including small caps) can cause that last one.]
.

New found hatred for Western Digital....

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Related Topics